To Know a Woman (Harvest in Translation)

by Amos Oz

  Since there was no answer, he went around the bungalow and tapped at a window that was framed by white curtains draped in a pair of rounded wings, like the curtains painted at the windows of the symmetrical houses in children's books. Between the two wings he could see a tiny but pleasant and extremely clean and neat living room, a Bukhara rug, a coffee table made from the stump of an olive tree, a single deep armchair and also a rocking chair in front of a television set on which stood a glass jar of the kind yogurt used to be sold in thirty or forty years ago, containing a bunch of chrysanthemums. On the wall he saw a painting of snow-capped Mount Hermon with the Sea of Galilee below, wreathed in bluish early-morning mist. Out of professional habit, Yoel identified the painter's vantage point, apparently on the slope of Mount Arbel. But what was the explanation for the increasingly painful feeling that he had been in this room before, and not only been there, but had lived there, a life full of powerful, forgotten joy?

  He went around to the back of the house and knocked on the kitchen door, which was painted the same dazzling blue and was also surrounded by masses of petunias in flowerpots amid china bells. But there was no answer here either. Pressing down the handle, he discovered that the door was not locked. Beyond it he found a tiny, splendidly clean and neat kitchen, painted pale blue, though all its furnishings and equipment were ancient. Here too Yoel saw the same kind of old yogurt jar on the kitchen table, except that here it was sprouting marigolds instead of chrysanthemums. From another jar, which stood on the old refrigerator, a sturdy, attractive sweet-potato plant trailed along the wall. It was only with difficulty that Yoel resisted the sudden desire to sit down on the rush stool and settle here in this kitchen.

  Finally he left, and after a slight hesitation decided to inspect the outbuildings before coming back and penetrating deeper into the house. There were three matching henhouses, well kept, enclosed by tall cypress trees and with small squares of lawn decorated in the corners with cactuses growing in rock gardens. Yoel observed that the henhouses were air-conditioned. And in the doorway of one of them he saw a skinny, small-framed, compressed-looking man standing, squinting at a test tube that was half full of a cloudy liquid. Yoel apologized for his unannounced visit. He introduced himself as an old friend and colleague of the man's late son. Of Yokneam.

  The old man stared at him in amazement, as though he had never heard the name Yokneam in his life. For a moment Yoel's confidence was shaken: had he come to the wrong old man after all? He asked the man if he was Mr. Ostashinsky, and whether he was disturbing him. The old man wore neatly pressed khaki clothes with wide military pockets, which might have been an improvised uniform from the time of the War of Independence; the skin of his face looked as rough as raw flesh, and his back was slightly hunched and bent, vaguely suggesting a nocturnal predator, a badger or pine marten, but his little eyes flashed sharp blue sparks that matched the doors of his house. Without responding to Yoel's outstretched hand, he said in a clear tenor voice and the accent of the early settlers: "Yeis. You are disturbing me. And yeis again, I am Zerach Ostashinsky." After a moment, slyly, with a shrewd wink, he added: "Ve didn' see you et de funeral." Once more Yoel had to apologize. He almost uttered the excuse that he had been abroad at the time. But, as ever, he avoided telling an untruth. He said:

  "You are right. I didn't come." He added a compliment to the old man on his excellent memory, which the man ignored.

  "And for vy hef you come here today?" he asked. As he did so he looked not at Yoel but, squinting sideways against the daylight, at the spermlike liquid in the glass test tube.

  "I've come to tell you something. And also to see if there's some way I can be of help. But, if it's possible, perhaps we could talk sitting down?"

  The old man thrust the stoppered test tube with the opaque liquid in it like a fountain pen into the pocket of his khaki shirt.

  He said:

  "I'm sorry. I'm not free." And: "Are you also a secret agent? A spy? A licensed killer?"

  "Not any more," said Yoel. "Couldn't you spare me just ten minutes of your time?"

  "Veil, five then," the old man compromised. "Please. Begin. I am all ears." But with these words he spun around and quickly entered the dark henhouse, obliging Yoel to follow on his heels, almost running after him as he darted from battery to battery adjusting the water taps attached to the metal troughs that ran along the cages. A constant quiet cackle, like busy gossip, filled the air, which was heavy with the smell of dung and feathers and chicken feed.

  "Speak," said the old man. "But keep it short."

  "It's like this, sir. I came to tell you that your son actually went to Bangkok instead of me. I was the one who was told to go first. And I refused. And your son went instead of me."

  "Nu? So vot?" the old man said without surprise. And without interrupting his brisk, efficient progress from battery to battery.

  "You might say that I have some responsibility for the disaster. Responsibility, though naturally not guilt."

  "Nu. So it's nice of you you should say det," declared the old man, still darting along the alleys in the henhouse. Occasionally he would disappear for an instant and reappear on the other side of a battery, leading Yoel to suspect that he had a network of secret passages.

  "It's true that I refused to go," Yoel said as though arguing, "but if it had been up to me, your son would also have stayed at home. I would never have sent him. I wouldn't have sent anyone. There was something there that I didn't like right from the start. It doesn't matter. The truth is that to this day it isn't clear to me what really happened."

  "Vot heppened. Vot heppened. Dey kilt him. Det's vot heppened. Vid a revolver dey kilt him. Vid five bullets. Vould you hold dis please?"

  Yoel held the rubber hose with both hands at the two points indicated by the old man, who suddenly, as quick as lightning, drew a flick-knife from his belt, made a small hole in the hose, and at once fitted a sparkling metal tap in it, tightened it, and pressed on, with Yoel at his heels.

  "Do you know," Yoel asked, "who killed him?"

  "Who kilt him. Who kilt him. De Jew-haters kilt him. Vy, who did you tink, de students of Greek philosophy?"

  "Look here," Yoel said, but at that instant the old man vanished. As though he had never existed. Or as though he had been swallowed up by the ground, which was covered here with a layer of pungent-smelling chicken droppings. Yoel began hunting for the old man between the rows of batteries, peering underneath the cages, walking faster and faster, breaking into a run, peering down the alleys to left and right, mixing them up, as though lost in a maze, retracing his steps, going up to the entrance and returning by a parallel alley, until he finally gave up in despair and shouted at the top of his voice: "Mr. Ostashinsky!"

  "It seems your five minutes are over," replied the old man, suddenly springing up behind a small stainless-steel counter immediately to Yoel's right, this time holding a reel of fine wire.

  "I wanted you to know that they ordered me to go, and your son was sent only because I refused."

  "Det I heard you say already."

  "And I would never have sent your son. I wouldn't have sent anyone."

  "Det also I heard you say. Vos dere something else?"

  "Did you know, sir, that your son once saved the lives of the Philharmonic Orchestra, when they were about to be massacred by terrorists? May I tell you that your son was a good man? An honest man? A brave man?"

  "Nu? So, for vot do ve need an orchestra? Vot good can orchestras do for us?"

  A lunatic, Yoel decided, peaceable, but definitely certifiable. And I was mad too, to come here.

  "Well, anyway, I share your grief."

  "After all, in his own vay he vos a terrorist himself. And if any man seeks his own private death, de death det suits him, den in de fullness of time he vill surely find it. And vot is so special about det?"

  "He was a friend of mine. Quite a close friend. And I would like to say, seeing that, if I have understood correctly, you are alone here ... m
aybe you'd like to come and be with us? To stay? To live? Even maybe for quite a long time? We are, I should say, an extended family ... a sort of urban kibbutz. Almost. And we could easily—how should I put it?—absorb you. Or maybe there's something else I can do for you? Something you need?"

  "Need? Vot do I need? 'And purify our hearts to serve Thee in truth'—det's vot ve all need. But in dis you don' help and you don' get help. It's every man for himself."

  "Still, I wish you wouldn't turn it down just like that. Think whether there isn't something I can do for you, Mr. Ostashinsky."

  Again the slyness of a badger or a pine marten flashed across the old man's rough face, and he almost winked at Yoel as he had winked at the cloudy liquid in the test tube when he had held it up to the sunlight.

  "Did you hef a hend in my son's death? Have you come here to buy yourself forgiveness?"

  And as he made his way to the electrical control panel by the entrance to the henhouse, walking fast and weaving slightly, like a lizard crossing an exposed patch of ground between two shadows, he suddenly turned his shriveled face and transfixed Yoel, who was running behind him, with his glance:

  "Nu? So who did?"

  Yoel did not understand.

  "You told me it vosn' you det sent him. And you asked me vot I need. So, vot I need is I should know who did send him."

  "Of course," Yoel said keenly, as though he were trampling the divine name underfoot with vindictive glee or righteous zeal. "Of course. For your information. It was Yirmiyahu Cordovero who sent him. Le Patron. The head of our office. Our Teacher. The famous mystery man. The father of us all. My brother. He sent him."

  The old man surfaced slowly from behind his counter, like a drowned corpse rising from the deep. Instead of the gratitude Yoel was expecting, instead of the absolution he imagined he had rightfully earned by his candor, instead of an invitation to tea in the house that glowed with the magic of a childhood he had never known, in the little kitchen that had won his heart like a promised land, instead of the open arms, came a blow. Which somehow, secretly, he had been expecting. Even waiting for. The father suddenly erupted, puffed himself up, bristled like an attacking pine marten. And Yoel recoiled from the spit. That never came. The old man merely hissed at him:

  "Traitor!"

  As Yoel turned to effect his retreat, with measured steps yet inwardly in headlong flight, the old man shouted after him again as though stoning him:

  "Cain!"

  It was important to him to avoid the house and its charms and to cut straight through to his car. So he plunged among the overgrown bushes that had once been a hedge. Very soon a bristly darkness, a thick, humid coat of ferns, closed around him. Gripped by claustrophobia, he began to trample on branches, to flail, to kick out at the dense foliage, which simply absorbed his kicks; bending stems and twigs, scratched all over, panting hard, his clothes covered with burrs and thorns and dry leaves, he seemed to be sinking in the folds of thick, soft, twisted, dark-green cotton wool, struggling with strange pangs of panic and seduction.

  He cleaned himself up to the best of his ability, started the car, and reversed rapidly down the dirt track. He only came to his senses when he heard the sound of the taillight being crushed as the car hit the trunk of a eucalyptus that was leaning across the track. Yoel could have sworn it was not there when he arrived. But the accident restored his self-control and he drove carefully all the way home. When he reached the Netanya interchange, he turned on the radio and managed to hear the end of an old piece for harpsichord, although he did not catch the name of it or of the composer. Then there was an interview with a Bible-loving woman who described her feelings about King David, a man who often in his long life received news of a death, and each time tore his clothes and uttered heartrending lamentations, even though in fact each news of a death was good news to him, because it brought him relief and sometimes even rescue. So it was in the case of the death of Saul and Jonathan at Gilboa, of Abner son of Ner, of Uriah the Hittite, and even of his son Absalom. Yoel turned off the radio and parked the car expertly, in reverse gear, with the front toward the street, dead in the center of the new pergola he had constructed. Then he went indoors to take a shower and change.

  As he was getting out of the shower the telephone rang; he picked it up and asked Krantz what he wanted.

  "Nothing," said the real-estate agent. "I thought you left a message for me, with Duby, to call you the moment I got in from Eilat. So now here I am, back with that chick, and now I've got to clear away the evidence because Odelia's flying back from Rome tomorrow and I don't want to have any trouble with her first thing."

  "Yes," said Yoel, "I remember now. Listen. I've got some business to talk over with you. Could you drop around tomorrow morning? What time does your wife get in? Hold on a minute. Actually, tomorrow morning is no good. I've got to take the car in to be mended. I've smashed a taillight. And the afternoon's no good either, because my women are coming back from Metullah. How about the day after tomorrow? Have you got the whole week off for Passover?"

  "What the hell, Yoel," said Krantz. "What's the problem? I'll come around right away. I'll be with you in ten minutes. Put the coffee on and stand by to repel boarders!"

  Yoel made coffee in the percolator. He'd have to go and see about the insurance tomorrow too, he thought. And spread some fertilizer on the lawn, because spring was here.

  46

  Arik Krantz, suntanned, in high spirits, wearing a shirt covered with flashing sequins, regaled Yoel, as they drank their coffee, with detailed descriptions of what Greta had to offer and what there was to see in Eilat when the sun came out. He begged Yoel again to come out of his monastery before it was too late, and let himself go. Why not start, let's say, with one night a week? You come to the hospital with me as a volunteer from ten to two in the morning. There's almost no work to do, the patients are asleep, and the nurses are awake, and the female volunteers even more so. And he went on to sing the praises of Christina and Iris: he was reserving them for Yoel, but he wouldn't be able to keep them indefinitely, and if it was too late, it was too late. He still hadn't forgotten that Yoel had taught him to say "I want you" in Burmese.

  Then, since they were both alone for the evening, Yoel let Krantz inspect his refrigerator and get them a bachelor supper of cheese and yogurt and a sausage omelette, while he made out a shopping list for the next morning, so that his mother, his mother-in-law, and his daughter would find the refrigerator full when they got back from Metullah in the afternoon. He reflected that mending the taillight would cost several hundred shekels, and this month he had already spent several hundred on the garden and the new pergola, and there were still some items on the agenda, such as a solar water heater, a new mailbox, a rocking chair or two for the living room, and after that some lighting for the garden.

  "Duby tells me he helped you with your gardening. Well done. Can't you tell me the magic word that makes him work, so I can get him to do something in our garden too?"

  "Listen," Yoel said after a moment, changing the subject without noticing, as he often did. "What's the situation with apartments at the moment? Is it a buyers' or a sellers' market?"

  "Depends where."

  "In Jerusalem for instance."

  "Why?"

  "I want you to go to Jerusalem for me and find out what I can get for a two-bedroom apartment with a living room, and actually it's got a little study too; in Talbiyeh. It's rented at the moment, but the lease comes up for renewal soon. I'll give you the particulars and the papers. Wait. I haven't finished. We've got another apartment in Jerusalem, two rooms, in the middle of Rehavia. Find out what the market value of that one is at the moment too. I'll refund all your expenses, of course, because you might have to spend a few days in Jerusalem."

  "What the hell! Yoel, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I wouldn't dream of taking a penny from you. We're friends. But tell me, really, have you decided to sell everything you've got in Jerusalem?"

  "Wait. I haven'
t finished yet. I want you to find out from that friend of yours, Kramer, if he's willing to sell me this house."

  "Tell me, Yoel, is anything the matter?"

  "Wait. I haven't finished yet. I want you to go into Tel Aviv with me one day this week to look over a penthouse apartment. On Karl Netter Street. The city at your fingertips, as you put it."

  "Just a minute. Give me time to breathe. Let me try to understand. You're planning to—"

  "Wait. Apart from all that, I'm interested in renting a room somewhere around here with all conveniences and a separate entrance. Something with privacy guaranteed."

  "Girls?"

  "Only one. Maximum."

  The agent, in his sequined shirt, with his head on one side and his mouth slightly open, stood up. Then he sat down again even before Yoel had time to tell him to. Suddenly, taking a small flat metal box out of his rear pocket, he popped a tablet in his mouth, put the box back in his pocket, and explained that the tablets were for heartburn, the fried sausage in the omelette had brought on a slight attack; would Yoel like one? Then he chuckled and said in a surprised tone, more to himself than to Yoel:

  "Boy—a revolution!"

  They had another cup of coffee and talked over the details. Krantz called home to tell Duby to get one or two things ready for his mother's return, because he would be staying late and might be going straight from Yoel's to his volunteer shift at the hospital, and would he wake him at six the next morning, because he wanted to take Mr. Ravid's—Yoel's—car to Guetta's Garage. Yoav Guetta would fix his taillight without making him wait and he'd charge him only half-price. So don't forget, Duby—"Just a minute," said Yoel, and Krantz stopped and covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "Tell Duby to come over some time when he's free. I've got something for him."